Lisbon, Oct. 22, 2025 (Lusa) - Several small producers promoting the petition "Save the Douro Winegrowers" called for "dignity" in the face of the economic uncertainties affecting the demarcated region in northern Portugal, at a hearing in the parliament, and put forward several suggestions for support measures.
At a hearing on the drafting of the public petition, Joaquim Monteiro called for "dignity" in the treatment of winegrowers and the entire region, wanting to "continue to live in the Douro region even if they [large producers] earn millions", asking only for "enough to live on" in their region.
Marinete Alves, a winegrower and lawyer, warned that in recent years there has been "a very large imbalance between the price of grapes and the cost of producing them, which causes a lack of security and great financial instability for winegrowers".
Another point is "the lack of grape purchase contracts", which means that the Douro region could be, in the producer's view, "perhaps the only region in the world and in the country that sells grapes, buys and sells grapes, without any price, without any contract, where most winegrowers deliver their grapes without a price" and "do not know when they will receive payment or how much they will receive".
"There is a decrease in winegrowers' incomes, we have a very small profit margin, financial insecurity, we have a reduction in our quality of life, it is causing rural desertification, it is having a very negative impact on the environment, on agricultural practices that are becoming unsustainable, we are losing our cultural heritage, our traditions are disappearing and, consequently, this will also have an impact on tourism," she warned.
Arlindo Castro argued that "the main economic activity in the Douro is profitable (...), but not everyone benefits from this profitability".
Giving a brief history of recent years, from the role of Casa do Douro in taking up "all the wines that the trade did not purchase in the region" to the production of brandy, which was liberalised in 1991, he noted that "as Douro brandy is always more expensive than brandy produced in other regions", this "made it economically impossible for Casa do Douro to continue taking up Douro wines".
"It reduced profits, reduced revenue from prices and increased surpluses, as is evident. The importation of brandy allowed for unlimited growth in the supply of Port wine, as part of it comes from outside the region. We were not limited to what the region produced. It was possible to import everything that was necessary to produce Port wine," a strategy he considers "completely wrong".
As solutions, Marinete Alves pointed to "the establishment of a minimum price for grapes" by including grapes in the "region's agri-food price observatory", thus ensuring "the economic sustainability of viticulture and, consequently, the social and environmental sustainability of the region itself".
Another solution is to make the brandy "exclusive to the Douro market region", emphasising that "what matters to the Douro is to sell what it produces" and not "what others produce", said Arlindo Castro.
The petitioners also consider that the measures taken so far, such as increased enforcement (against the use of imported grapes), are "insufficient" and cannot only occur at harvest time.
The petition "Save the Douro winegrowers" was delivered to the parliament, with 2,605 signatures, in October 2024.
The concerns that gave rise to the petition were confirmed during the almost two months of the 2024 harvest, which was marked by difficulties in selling the production, with producers leaving grapes that were not destined for Port wine in their vineyards, with operators claiming full stocks in order not to buy or to buy fewer grapes.
In April, more than 150 Douro winegrowers received letters cancelling orders for grapes for this year.
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